The Actors Theatre Playhouse will present its first Saturday Staged Reading of the season with Jon Robin Baitz' Substance of Fire for two Saturday performances on July 14 and 21 at 7:30 p.m. Reservations are not required. All tickets are $6 at the door.
Baitz is an acclaimed playwright, screenwriter for film and television, and actor. His Tony-nominated new play Other Desert Cities is currently enjoying a long run on Broadway. He is also the creator of the ABC-TV series Brothers & Sisters.
In Substance of Fire, the Geldhart family is concerned for the fate of the publishing company that bears its name. Aaron, the son with the business education, is pushing to publish popular novels in order to avert bankruptcy. He summons Martin and Sarah, his brother and sister, to assist in confronting Isaac, their tyrannical father.
Between them, they have inherited enough shares from their mother to take away his control of the company, provided they can all agree. Isaac is intent on publishing scholarly works on the Holocaust, an obsession linked to his traumatic childhood in wartime Europe. Inside this family fight, Baitz explores the nature of modern publishing and media, questioning what is being offered to and read by the American public.
“It's about the fire within and the struggle to keep it burning as we get older,” said co-director Christopher Emily Coutant, “even sometimes in competition with our own children.”
“The father in Baitz's play isn't ready to yield an inch,” Coutant said. “He can't let go of his passion for power, his conviction that he is right, his sexuality. Meanwhile his adult children are desperate to establish their own identities. Baitz gives us a high stakes confrontation that is both appalling and at the same thrilling and relevant.”
Coutant and Michael Fox Kennedy are co-directors for the staged reading. The cast includes Coutant as Marge Hackett, Kennedy as Isaac, Richard Epstein as Aaron, Ben Stockman as Martin, and Sara Vitale as Sarah.
The Playhouse is located on the corner of Brook and Main streets in West Chesterfield. Visit www.actors-theatre.info for further production and season information, or call the Playhouse Information Line toll-free at 877-666-1855.